When was the last time you threw caution to the wind and went all-out for an opportunity that made you tingle with excitement? Been a while?

For most adults, the answer would be yes. Still, as children we did it all the time. So, what happened as we grew older? Pete Bissonet, president of Learning Strategies Corporation, says our heads often get in the way. They’re filled with reasons we shouldn’t, things that could go wrong, or more important things to do.

Learning to follow your heart again is a two-step process, he says. The first step is letting go of your need for approval and the second step is learning what it is you truly want. And, believe me, you’re never going to know what you want if you keep focussing on the good feedback you get from others when doing what they wanted you to do.

Sounds easy to distinguish between the two? Not so. Could it really be that we don’t know what we want in life? Listen, girlfriend, most of us don’t even know exactly how we feel in certain situations and if we do realise that we’re having uncomfortable feelings, we’re often not sure where they come from or how to let them go.

We over-analyse and keep holding ourselves back until the elusive day when we would finally understand. Let me tell you, in this way you can spend your entire life waiting to start living.

According to Neale Donald Walsch we shouldn’t try to “figure it out”. “Stop it,” he says. Just focus on what you now wish for and keep moving forward.

It might be that whatever is happening in our lives has little to do with us personally. Madisyn Taylor writes that “we are all part of a complex system of being, and things work themselves out in the system as a whole. Sometimes we are just playing a necessary part in that process with a result larger than we can understand.”

While this can be hard to grasp, it can free us from overthinking the matter. Madisyn says we can simply thank the event for being part of our experience and let it go. This might not be all that easy to do when it feels as if things will fall apart when you just let go.

Still, sometimes when it looks as if life is falling apart, it may be falling together for the first time, says Neale. “I have learned to trust the process of life, and not so much the outcome,” he says. “Destinations have not nearly as much value as journeys.”

“Beware of destination addiction,” says Robert Holden, director of the Happiness Project. He defines this addiction as “a preoccupation with the idea that happiness is in the next place, the next job, and with the next partner. Until you give up the idea that happiness is someplace else, it will never be where you are.”

We have convinced ourselves that we have to reach a certain goal to be happy. “If I just get through this assignment in school, I will be happy. If I purchase this car or this house or this outfit, I will be happy. If I can find a new job, then my happiness is assured. If only I find love, my heart will be filled with happiness forever.”

Was that car or house or job or outfit even what you wanted in the first place? Or were they all part of something you think you are supposed to want? Who would you be if you stripped away all the beliefs you’ve inherited, all the thoughts and feelings that don’t support your true self?

Neale says that if you’re doing something for someone else’s approval, you may as well not do it at all. There is only one reason to do anything: to announce and declare, express and fulfil, become and experience who you really are.

On the highway of life you have to choose your lane and learn how to stay in it. Stop weaving in and out of other lanes where you are not comfortable with the speed; stop trying to overtake so that you can simply be one vehicle ahead. It’s not necessary to keep comparing your own progress to those in the other lanes. You really cannot imitate anybody else’s trip.